We’re keeping the faith

By now, we know almost everything we could know about the new Pope Leo XIV.

We know he’s the first pope born in the U.S., that he holds dual citizenship with Peru and he is the first pope to come from the Augustinian order.

We know he speaks five languages and likes to play tennis and Wordle. We know about his family, his upbringing, his education and that his favourite baseball team is the Chicago White Sox. (Sorry, Cubs fans.)

We know his selection has infuriated some Trump supporters in the U.S. due to his support for welcoming migrants and refugees and assisting people who are poor and marginalized.

Beyond that, it’s still too early to know where he will steer his papacy. But early clues indicate he will continue in the direction of his predecessor, Pope Francis, when it comes to synodality and leading a welcoming Church.

How do we know all these things? Because of the media, mostly.

Usually, the media ignores the Roman Catholic Church unless there is scandal or conflict of some kind. It’s similar for other religions.

But the death of Pope Francis and the conclave brought thousands of reporters from around the world to Rome. Normally, the Vatican press corps has about 100 accredited journalists. Over the past few weeks, an estimated 7,000 reporters from all over the world were in the city.

All that attention, including from Canadian media, got me to wondering why there was so much attention from reporters when the media normally ignores religion.

One reason was the person of Pope Francis himself. His welcoming and inclusive stance endeared him to many of us, not just Roman Catholics.

Other reasons include the ritual nature of his funeral; the Roman Catholic Church knows how to put on a spectacle! The backdrop of the eternal city didn’t hurt, either.

Then there was the conclave, with its sealed doors, secret voting and white smoke. The popularity of the movie Conclave helped in this regard, too.

Finally, there was the big reveal. Was the smoke white or not? In an age of high tech, the old way of signalling a decision seemed attractively quaint.

It’s no wonder the media went to Rome in droves. But now that all the reporters have packed up and gone home, what’s next? How much attention will the Roman Catholic Church get now?

I suspect it will not be much. Hendro Munsterman, who works as a member of the Vatican press corps as a reporter for the Dutch Christian newspaper Nederlands Dagblad, feels the same.

When Pope Francis died, he witnessed the crush of journalists who came for the funeral. It was a “madhouse,” he said, with some TV stations even sending three shifts of reporters: one for the morning, one for the afternoon, one for the evening and night.

Following his death, it went quiet for a bit, then ramped up again for the conclave.

As a Vatican correspondent, Munsterman was in constant demand from reporters from around the world who knew little or nothing about the Church or the inner workings of the Vatican.

“In this way we give away our knowledge that we have built up by following the Vatican day in and day out for our own subscribers, readers, listeners and viewers,” he said, noting the community of Vatican journalists is known to be friendly and willing to help reporters who are flown in with little understanding “of this wonderful world of the Vatican.”

And now they are gone again. “But we will stay to see the new pope take steps, to report and interpret them. To dig a spade deeper,” he said.

And that’s true here at the Free Press, too. Long after all other Canadian media have stopped reporting about the pope and the Roman Catholic Church (unless something bad or controversial happens), we will still be digging the spade deeper at the issues and topics that animate members of that Church in Winnipeg and around the world.

It’s the same for other religions, too. Even though religiosity is waning in Canada today, the fact is that 84 per cent of people in the world still identify with a religion. (Here in Winnipeg, that figure is 63 per cent.) The world can’t be understood without including religion in the media mix, in other words.

As Munsterman put it: “If you look at the current world situation only through political and sociological glasses and leave religion out of consideration, you miss something very essential.”

This includes the war in Ukraine, which can’t be understood without seeing how Russian Orthodox ideology shapes Putin’s politics; the situation in Palestine and Israel, which can only be partially grasped without appreciating how holy scriptures are used by both sides to support their view of who owns the land; and you can’t understand Donald Trump without understanding the evangelicals who helped vote him into power.

Closer to home, it helps to know the link between attendance at religious services and the Conservative Party if you want to understand what’s happening in Canadian politics today.

That’s the commitment we make to you at the Free Press — to keep digging into religion long after the big spectacles like the election of a new pope are over.

You can do your part, too, by joining the 25 or so religious groups that support religion coverage at the paper. You can make a contribution to Religion in the News to keep this reporting strong and vital.

You can make your contribution at winnipegfreepress.com/support-faith or by sending a cheque to Religion in the News, c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave. R2X 3B6.

faith@freepress.mb.ca

The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba. If you appreciate that coverage, help us do more! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow us to deepen our reporting about faith in the province. Thanks! BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER